UFC heavyweight champion Jon Jones appears to be open to the idea of fighting in what he declares to be ‘super-fights’ if he beats Stipe Miocic at UFC 309 on Saturday night, as long as that doesn’t include the most obvious option, and the one that many people believe may be his biggest threat – interim champion Tom Aspinall.
“I could see myself, after this, entertaining super-fights only… After this fight, if we get a dominant performance, then I am prepared to vacate the heavyweight championship and fight for fun,” Jones told Aaron Brewster.
“Man, I want to fight for fun. I’ve had a big chip on my shoulder my whole career of having to defend, defend, defend… I don’t necessarily want it to be over, but I just want to fight for fun.”
So who exactly does Jones have in mind?
Well we already know that he’s targeted a clash of the titans with current light-heavyweight champion Alex Pereira, and that’s certainly a blockbuster clash that everyone would be excited to see.
In fact, at one stage this week Jones suggested that might be the only fight he’d be willing to entertain.
“One of the ways I look at it, would you guys rather lose me or get one more superfight and the only superfight that makes sense to me and my team is Alex Pereira,” Jones told reporters during UFC 309 media day.
However, in the interview with Brewster, Jones also mentioned a couple of other potential opponents that would fall under the ‘fun’ category.
“Just random fights like Jamahal Hill; me and him meet up at 220lbs and see what happens – that would be interesting to see… I’m at an interesting weight where I can fight either light heavyweights or heavyweights.
“Derrick Lewis with his knockout power, the biggest puncher in history – I’m just throwing out random names but I’m at a bodyweight right now where I could do just fun fights, and that’s what I want to do.”
Things get confusing here, since Jones has been adamant that he doesn’t want to fight Tom Aspinall as he believes it wouldn’t do anything for his legacy if he beat the current interim heavyweight champion, who has successfully defended that belt and holds a 21-3 career record.
“I get that Tom is an exciting fighter,” Jones said this week. “I get that finally after 16 years we found somebody who is seven years younger than me and 30 pounds bigger than me, we finally found someone who may give me a great challenge and everyone wants to see it so bad. For me, what’s in it for me? He changes nothing if I beat him.”
Yet he’d be willing to fight Hill at a catchweight, who holds 12-2 (+1nc) record and is coming off a brutal KO loss in an unsuccessful attempt to defend the 205lb title for the first time, and would also entertaining a potential fight with Lewis, who has never won a title and has lost five of his last eight fights.
It’s at this stage that it becomes hard to shake the feeling that these aren’t so much ‘super-fights’ so much as Jones simply seeking to pick and choose fights he thinks he can win.
The Pereira fight has more of an air of legitimacy to it of course given his impressive accomplishments, though it could also be argued that Jones would see that as a favorable match-up stylistically given that he would likely have little trouble taking down the kickboxer and submitting him like he did against Ciryl Gane to win the heavyweight title.
One man who is in no doubt about what Jones is up to is of course Aspinall himself.
“Jon Jones ducked Francis Ngannou for three years. Like, don’t be surprised that this guy always takes fights where he’s at their advantage,” Aspinall said on his YouTube channel.
